Chapter 3 - The Mercer File
Hospital administration opened an internal investigation immediately.
Within an hour, security recovered a digital admission file attached to the name Baby Mercer.
The records were fake.
No mother named Mercer had delivered a baby at the hospital.
No physician had treated Baby Mercer.
But somebody with administrative access had created the file forty-eight hours before Sofia went into labor.
That meant the plan existed before Nico was born.
Lorenzo stood beside Marcus in the security office while Sofia rested upstairs with Claire.
“Who created it?”
Marcus turned the monitor.
The employee login belonged to Patricia Lang, a maternity admissions coordinator.
Patricia was nowhere in the building.
She had called in sick that morning.
Marcus pulled her emergency contact information.
Lorenzo recognized the address.
It belonged to a condominium development owned by Hale Capital.
Julian’s company.
“That’s not a coincidence,” Lorenzo said.
It wasn’t.
Further review revealed Patricia had received a $40,000 “consulting payment” from another Hale-controlled entity three weeks earlier.
Sofia heard the details from her bed.
She looked at Julian like he was a stranger.
“Did you pay her?”
“No.”
“Did your company?”
“I don’t personally approve every payment.”
Lorenzo laughed without humor.
“You expect us to believe someone used your company, your brother, your mother, a forged signature, and a man you know personally—and you somehow knew nothing?”
Julian looked toward Sofia.
“I was protecting our family.”
That sentence silenced everyone.
Sofia slowly sat up.
“From what?”
Julian realized his mistake.
Bianca stepped in.
“Sofia, you’ve just given birth. You’re exhausted. You’re emotional.”
Lorenzo’s eyes went cold.
“Don’t do that.”
Bianca stopped.
“Don’t call my daughter unstable because she’s asking why you tried to take her child.”
Sofia looked at Julian.
“What were you protecting us from?”
Julian walked toward the window.
For a moment, Sofia thought he might finally tell her.
Instead he said, “Your father has never accepted me.”
Lorenzo stepped forward.
“This isn’t about me.”
“It has always been about you.”
Julian turned around.
“You think because you built Romano Logistics from nothing, you own Sofia. You interfere in our marriage. You question every investment I make.”
“Because your investments lose money.”
Victor muttered, “Here we go.”
Lorenzo ignored him.
“I warned Sofia about your family because every time I looked at your books, something smelled wrong.”
Bianca’s face tightened.
There.
Lorenzo saw it.
Money.
The baby was connected to money.
He immediately called his chief financial officer.
“Pull every transaction between Romano family entities and anything connected to Julian, Victor, or Bianca Hale.”
Sofia stared.
“Dad…”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“I should have done it before.”
Twenty minutes later, his CFO called back.
There had been three attempted loans against an account Lorenzo had never authorized Julian to access.
Each loan had been rejected.
Then came the strange part.
All three applications listed a future asset as collateral.
The Nicholas Romano-Hale Family Trust.
Sofia whispered, “There is no Nicholas Romano-Hale Family Trust.”
Lorenzo looked at Julian.
Julian finally looked afraid.
Because the trust did exist.
May you like
It had been created six months before Nico was born.
And Sofia had supposedly signed it.
